Unknown Knight

"Whoosh-!"

An arrow shot by Ran Hu hit a male deer that was raising its head in alert in the distant herd. Then more than a dozen arrows were shot from his side, hitting five or six more deer on the spot. The injured seven or eight and the rest of the frightened deer jumped and fled in all directions.

Ran Hu whistled and a dozen light cavalrymen mounted their horses and started chasing.

"Just chase the injured deer back and let the rest go. The deer meat will be enough for us to eat for a few days, especially those pregnant deer, Lord Ran Hu."

James shouted loudly to Ran Hu who was leading the pursuit.

The light cavalry were delighted to see the prey and were in high spirits. They all howled like wolves, as if they did not hear James' words at all, causing the new dean to shake his head.

He was on the orders of the lord to conduct an investigation in the upper reaches of the Kudan River. According to the information given to him by the lord, there was an iron mine to the north along the river, which was a resource urgently needed for the construction of the territory.

The main purpose of his trip was to evaluate the exploitable value of the mine, measure the river's transportation water conditions, and conduct a general survey of the resources on both sides of the river.

Atiman, who always competed for every project, wanted to compete with him, but when the adult saw his slightly bulging belly, he chose himself without hesitation, which made the old politician so angry that his face turned red like a pig liver. Thinking about the situation at that time, James felt secretly happy.

"Look at your fat body. You don't look like a scholar at all."

James muttered to himself, but his hands did not stop, and he looked at a piece of rock in his hand with a magnifying glass.

This magnifying glass was made by the lord using a piece of pure crystal. It was polished by a gem craftsman who was hired at a high salary from the city of Rivadin. It took nearly a month and a half to make three of them. One is used by the lord, and the remaining two are given to him and Atiman, one each. It shows how precious they are.

"The rock interlayer contains minerals that look like gold. It is located fifty-five miles north of Tangquan Fortress. The mineral concentration is too low. Mining is not recommended for the time being. It can be followed up as a subsequent project. The ore code is: N95."

He recorded it in the notebook as he spoke. After recording, he looked at the ore with a magnifying glass. There was a thin line of metallic luster in the middle. He shook his head and casually threw the stone with the N95 mark on it into the bag on the packhorse.

That cheeky expression was full of disgust. If the Chinese gold explorers saw it, they would definitely spit in his face.

In addition to Ran Hu and his dozen or so light cavalry guards, there were also seven or eight students who had just graduated from Tangquan College. They were excited and cheerful along the way, as full of energy as calves out of the pen. Looking at their happy energy, it turned out that they were not conducting a difficult inspection this time, but were here for an outing.

But this is not surprising. There are more than 20 people on this trip. Not only do each person have two horses and carry sufficient supplies, but there are also two boats full of supplies on the water, pulled by horses.

The lord was afraid that they would have to work hard in the wild, so he not only prepared enough food, but also fresh fruits and vegetables. Overall, the food was better than that in the fortress. In order to make them feel at ease on the outing, the lord even gave this treatment a name, "field work subsidy."

The rest of the supplies include single tents, insect repellent, snake bite medicine, thick-soled hiking shoes, marching water bottles, etc. Every team member is truly treated as a treasure.

This made James, who was still begging on the road two months ago, feel very uneasy. He held a special meeting with these students every night during the rest period, repeatedly telling them to be grateful and worthy of the gold coins that the lord spent on each of them.

The expedition team traveled north for another day and finally found the iron mine that the lord had mentioned. After two days of measuring and sampling the surrounding rocks, James discovered that this was a very high-quality iron mine.

The specific method of judgment was told to him by Aix. The ore samples at each sampling point had a strong adsorption force on ironware, and there were three hilltops of exposed mining areas alone, and it was unknown how much extended underground.

This achievement made James very excited. He felt that he had lived up to the adults' trust and had completed the inspection mission.

Two days later, they went upstream for another day. The river gradually became narrower, sometimes turbulent, and sometimes full of shallows and rocks. The students who stayed on the boat to measure the water level reported to him that they could no longer sail.

James decided not to go any further, as his lord had instructed him not to go too deep into the river during his investigation and that the ships carrying supplies should return if they could not sail.

At a shallow ford, James and his companions crossed the river to the other side and started their return journey.

After about two days of walking back, Ran Hu came back and reported to James that he had discovered a wild village and asked him, as the expedition leader, how to deal with it.

What could he do? What valuable things could there be in a village in such a harsh environment? If not forced to do so, no one would want to make a living in such an uninhabited place. He was about to ignore it and move on.

On second thought, everyone had worked hard along the way, and it would be better to ask someone familiar with the area and get to know the surrounding situation instead of running around, and it would save some time. So he told Ran Hu to go to the village and take a look first.

The group arrived at the village, where only five or six old men who could not even stand up straight were left. After asking for a long time, he only learned that the village was called Sanhu Village. As for other details, the old men kept silent at first, and later pretended to be deaf and dumb and answered irrelevant questions.

After James gave the villagers a spare stamped iron pot from the territory and some surplus food, he finally gained their trust. Although James and his men only had a dozen light cavalrymen, they were all well-equipped and capable of massacring the entire village, so all the young and strong children in the village were scared and fled to the nearby forest.

At the call of this iron pot which was worth the entire village's property, more than a dozen young men and five or six children returned to the village one after another.

It was over a hearty meal of venison stew that the villagers gradually opened up to these friendly strangers.

It turned out that these residents were originally subjects of Shules. They fled here together because they could not bear the oppression of their lord. They settled here for many years and made a living by hunting, fishing and gathering mountain products.

They were self-sufficient, and even the spears and javelins they used for hunting were made of iron birch, and the arrowheads were made of flint. Although their lives were hard, they were smooth, and they were not burdened by heavy taxes and labor.

When James asked the question he wanted to ask most: Is there anything special nearby? The village elder thought for a moment and told him that there was a kind of black stone on the back hillside that could be used as firewood, but it was of no great use to the villagers, it just saved a lot of time in chopping wood.

James had a piece brought to him and saw that it was the coal he had seen in the Rhodok Kingdom.